Nazım Hikmet (born 1902,Salonika,Ottoman Empire [now Thessaloníki, Greece]—died June 2, 1963, Moscow) was a poet who was one of the most important and influential figures in 20th-centuryTurkish literature.

The son of an Ottoman government official, Nazım Hikmet grew up in Anatolia; after briefly attending the Turkish naval academy, he studied economics andpolitical science at the University of Moscow. Returning home as a Marxist in 1924 after the advent of the new Turkish Republic, he began to work for a number of journals and started Communistpropaganda activities. In 1951 he leftTurkey forever after serving a lengthy jail sentence for his radical and subversive activities. From then on he lived in theSoviet Union and eastern Europe, where he continued to work for the ideals of world Communism.

His mastery of language and introduction offree verse and a wide range of poetic themes strongly influenced Turkish literature in the late 1930s. After early recognition with his patriotic poems insyllabic metre, inMoscow he came under the influence of the Russian Futurists, and by abandoning traditional poetic forms, indulging in exaggerated imagery, and using unexpected associations, he attempted to “depoetize”poetry. Later his style became quieter, and he publishedŞeyh Bedreddin destanı (1936; “The Epic of Shaykh Bedreddin”), about a 15th-century revolutionary religious leader in Anatolia; andMemleketimden insan manzaraları (“Portraits of People from My Land”), a 20,000-line epic. Although previouslycensored, after his death in 1963 all his works were published and widely read, and he became a poet of the people and a revolutionary hero of the Turkish left. Many of his works have been translated into English, includingSelected Poems (1967),The Moscow Symphony (1970),The Day Before Tomorrow (1972), andThings I Didn’t Know I Loved (1975). Nazım Hikmet is also known for his plays, which are written in vigorous prose and are also mainly Marxist inspired.

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